Sibling Grief over Perinatal Loss—A Retrospective Qualitative Study

Figures & data

Figure 1 Sibling grief conceptual network.

Figure 2 Sick tree.

Table 1. Comments, emerging themes, and master themes.

Own source.

Emerging themes (with brief comments in brackets)	Master themes
Eternal life in the other world (life of a guardian angel/”as if” saint; redemption; a soul just watching, not interfering)	Spirituality
Relations to this world (signs through dreams, drawings, and natural phenomena; imagination; auguries, e.g., giving name to the deceased sibling or predicting the loss; supernatural experiences as revelations)
One’s personal mission in life (make up for the loss; the lost sibling’s fate)
Relation to God
Wish to see the lost baby (S/he is a person, a family member, has a name, and is to be remembered /re-membered)	Establishing the bond/ Continuing bonds
Need for rituals (funeral and other leave-taking rituals)
Own sacrifice (e.g., giving own favorite toy to the lost sibling)
The lost sibling’s life continues (e.g., visualizing them as kindergarten children or adults.)
Secrets and suppression (related to parents’ own emotions, own divinations)	Parental grief and mourning
Parents’ sadness (dark period in the life of the family, suicidal mother, impairments of the bond)
Distancing, objectivity (“this is how it was and that’s all”)
External communication (at the hospital, at school etc.—the infant is a non-person in the eyes of others; dies alone, without ever having a chance to experience the love of the family).	External reactions
Secrets (when communicating with friends and acquaintances; on part of the medical staff concerning the cause of death)
Parentification (early burden related to parents’ grief and sometimes to other traumas)	Transforming power of trauma
Birth order (“where is my place?”)
Changes in identity aspirations
A series of other traumas in the family (secrets; traumas activated by or related to the loss of sibling)
Specific temporal relations reflected in the sentence structure and grammar
Post-traumatic growth
Fears from a similar experience in one’s own life
Mixed feelings and attitudes (awe, sadness, anger, guilt, appreciation of life)	Emotions
Enmeshed boundaries (own emotions—parents’ emotions)
Blaming the medical staff (suspected malpractice, lack of information, mechanical handling of grief; hypothesized crime)	Who is responsible?
Fetal experiences (family conflicts)
Disturbed order (the sibling herself should not have been born so that the lost sister could live)

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in the library repository of the University of Pécs at https://pea.lib.pte.hu/handle/pea/24829.